Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, Chapter 6, Protection of Privacy. Updated 27 February 2023. 51 performing their jobs or offered in the course of preparing work product are not the employee’s personal information. This is because the employee is only offering the opinion or view as part of their employment responsibilities, not in a personal capacity. However, if the employee states, “Smith is not a good employee”, the opinion is about another individual and subsection 24(1)(h) of FOIP would apply. Signing a petition is personal information pursuant to subsection 24(1)(f) of FOIP because by signing, the individual is indicating that they agree with the petition’s purpose. This would constitute the opinions or views of the individual.145 However, petitions are not intended to be kept secret. The names of individuals signing a petition are not normally supplied in confidence. Petitions are generally considered to be public information; individuals signing a petition are publicly lending their support to a position and expect that their names may be disclosed. There may be some cases, however, in which the circumstances surrounding the collection of signatures on a petition indicate that the individuals have signed with the understanding that their names will not be disclosed. Each situation must be considered on a case-by-case basis.146 IPC Findings In Review Report F-2010-001, the Commissioner found that opinions submitted by private individuals to a government institution as part of a consultation process, was personal information pursuant to subsection 24(1)(f) of FOIP. The Commissioner recommended the names and email addresses associated with the opinions be removed and the opinions be released as no individuals could then be identified. In Review Report LA-2013-003, the Commissioner found that some employees provided views and opinions outside of the employee’s duties and as such the carve-out at subsection 23(2)(b) of The Local Authority Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act did not apply. For example, views or opinions that dealt with matters outside of the employee’s duties were sent from a personal email address, contained personal contact information and the views or opinions did not represent the official views of the employer. These types of views or opinions were found to be personal information. In Review Report 019-2014, the Commissioner found that information severed was not personal in nature and were the opinions and views of elected City of Saskatoon Councillors 145 SK OIPC Review Report 156-2015 at [7]. This was also found in Investigation Report 059-2018 at [9]. 146 SK OIPC Investigation Report 059-2018 at [21] to [23].
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